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There are ALWAYS signs of radicalisation to violence

At the risk of seeming insensitive, here is an extract from today’s offerings from the satirical Web site The Onion (if you don’t know what The Onion and its Canadian counterpart The Beaverton are you really should fix that).  Don’t be put off by the apparent dismissal of the Holocaust: there is a bigger message […]

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What missionaries and religious extremists have in common

If there is one story that has grabbed worldwide attention lately it has to be the American Christian missionary who died trying to bring the Gospel to a people off the coast of India who have made it quite clear that they want nothing to do with the outside world, let alone be converted to […]

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Tony Clement, sexting and the NSICOP

This piece appeared  in The Hill Times on November 19, 2018. I imagine that most Canadians are already very tired of this story and yet here I am weighing in on it, from the perspective of national security.  To sum up this debacle, not that I think anyone does not know the salacious details, MP […]

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The ill-named ‘war on terrorism’ is not going well

The title of this blog is biased, of that there is no doubt. This offering is also perhaps not really necessary as Rowman and Littlefield have just published my 4th book, An End to the War on Terrorism, in which I have a much longer discussion on the premise of this much shorter piece.  So […]

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How science and counter terrorism have their parallels

When I was a kid I really wanted to be a scientist.  It was not always clear what kind of scientist I wanted to be: anthropologist (early humans fascinated me), biologist, geologist, whatever.  I devoured any book on science I could get from the library, the first book I ever bought myself with my allowance […]

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Removing citizenship from terrorists is fraught with difficulties

As we continue to freak out about what to do with those of our citizens who stupidly chose to leave the comforts of our lands to join terrorist groups like Islamic State (IS), Al Qaeda (AQ), Al Shabaab and others, or planned terrorist acts in our backyards, we still need to follow our laws and […]

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When intelligence agencies get it wrong cut them some slack please

For those who do not know this I am a hockey goaltender.  I am not a very good one, mind you, but I love playing ‘net’.  This is of course an absurd attitude as a goalie in hockey has to do everything in his or her power to get the body between a hard, vulcanised […]

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Determining the reliability of your news sources relies on you

If you live in the National Capital Region of Canada and have never been to one of the public talks organised by The Panel or – horror of horrors! – never heard of The Panel you really need to do your homework.  The Panel is an Ottawa-based organisation that hosts two live events each year […]

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The upside of foreign fighter policy Down Under

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on November 12, 2018. Australia and Canada are very similar countries in many ways.  Both former British colonies, both (relatively) open to immigration, both members of the 5 eyes intelligence community.  I have visited Australia on many occasions and I must admit that I always feel at home […]

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When an unnecessary fear of immigration begets an over-exaggerated fear of terrorism

This piece appeared  in The Ottawa Citizen (online) on November 12, 2018. I never knew my maternal grandfather.  He emigrated to Canada in the early part of the 20th century from western Ukraine (or eastern Poland, the details on that are fuzzy) and settled in Montreal where he worked at the CPR’s Angus workshops, along […]